Central Oregon's Booming Economy - Page 2

Central Oregon Tourism –

2016 – Visit Bend, the city’s primary tourism promotion organization, commissioned a study of how many people visited in 2015. It estimated that 2.5 to 3 million visitors came and stayed an average of 2.4 days. To put that in perspective, almost 20,000 people visited Bend every day of the year on average. Oregonians accounted for 37 percent of all visitors. California (18 percent) and Washington (15 percent) were the other popular states of origin. No other state accounted for more than 2.5 percent of visitors.

2019 Update – 4.5 million visitors to Central Oregon every year.

January 31, 2020 – For the ninth year in a row, Oregon saw another bump in visitor spending, according to a new economic impact report from the Oregon Tourism Commission. Total direct travel spending in Oregon hit $12.3 billion in 2018, a 4.2% increase over 2017, according to the Dean Runyan Associates Oregon Travel Impacts report. In Central Oregon, which ranks fifth in terms of travel spending, visitors spent $961 million in 2018, according to report. That represents a 6.5% increase over 2017, according to the report.

2021 VCO – Tourism continues to be the single largest industry in Central Oregon, employing more than 9,250 residents and generating total economic impacts that exceed $1.41 billion annually.

Visit Bend – Focuses first on repeat visitors who account for 65% of annual tourism.

“Seventy-five to 80 percent of the visitors come from Portland, Seattle and San Francisco,” Visit Bend’s Kevney Dugan said, “places which are drivable.”